"Rockstar Spouse" attacks dev conditions

An individual who claims to represent the wives of Rockstar San Diego staff has claimed that the studio is running its employees into the ground.

Blogging on Gamasutra, "Rockstar Spouse" claimed that conditions at the studio have been in decline for nearly a year, with employees expected to work 12-hour days, including Saturdays, while overtime and holiday time have been cut and pay-rises have barely covered inflation.

The writer also claimed that employees at the studio, which is currently working on Red Dead Redemption for PS3 and Xbox 360, are treated shabbily if they book time off, and misled about when the so-called 'crunch' conditions will let up.

The original post is followed by several anonymous responses, claiming to be from other individuals who work for Rockstar San Diego, which seem to verify its contents, although nobody from the studio had contributed under a real name at the time of writing.

We've contacted Rockstar for comment.

The claims - and the "Rockstar Spouse" pseudonym - echo the famous ea_spouse LiveJournal post from 2004, in which a disgruntled wife of an EA employee went off on one about crunch periods and laid into then-CEO Larry Probst for what she saw as EA's inhumane treatment of its employees.